Editing Archibald Campbell Tait (section)

==Life==
[[Image:Archibald Campbell Tait (H Hering NPG Ax30380).jpg|thumb|left|200px|Archbishop Tait by Henry Hering.]]

Tait was born on Saturday, 21 December 1811, at 2 Park Place<ref>Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1811</ref> in [[Edinburgh]], Scotland, the son of [[Crauford Tait]] [[Writer to the Signet|WS]] of [[Harviestoun]] (1766–1832) and his wife, Susan Campbell (1777–1814) daughter of Lord [[Ilay Campbell]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.robertburns.org/encyclopedia/TaitCrawfordorCrauford1765-1832.840.shtml|title=Robert Burns Country: The Burns Encyclopedia: Tait, Crawford or Crauford (1765? - 1832)}}</ref>

He was educated at the [[Royal High School (Edinburgh)|High School in Edinburgh]] and from 1824 at the newly completed [[Edinburgh Academy]], where he was school dux 1826/7. His parents were [[Presbyterian]]s but he early turned towards the [[Scottish Episcopal Church]]. He was [[Confirmation|confirmed]] in his first year at Oxford, having entered [[Balliol College, Oxford|Balliol College]] in October 1830 as a [[Snell Exhibitioner]] from the [[University of Glasgow]]. He won an open scholarship, took his degree with a first-class in ''[[Literae Humaniores]]'' ([[classics]]) in 1833 and became a fellow and tutor of Balliol. He was ordained deacon in 1836 and priest in 1838 and served a curacy at [[Marsh Baldon]].{{sfn|Collins|1911|p=363}}

Rapid changes among the fellows found him, at age 26, "the senior and most responsible of the four Balliol tutors."<ref name="Benham">{{cite book |last1=Davidson |first1=Randall Thomas |last2=Benham |first2=William |title=Life of Archibald Campbell Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury Volume 1 |date=1891 |publisher=London; New York : Macmillan |page=61 |url=https://archive.org/details/a567338501daviuoft/page/n77/mode/2up?q=responsible}}</ref> The experience gained during this period stood him in good stead afterwards as a member of the first Oxford University Commission (1850–52). He never sympathised with the principles of the [[Oxford Movement]] and, on the appearance of [[Tract 90]] in 1841, he drafted the famous protest of the "Four Tutors" against it; but this was his only important contribution to the controversy. On the other hand, although his sympathies were on the whole with the liberal movement in the university, he never took a lead in the matter.{{sfn|Collins|1911|p=363}}

In 1842, he became an undistinguished but useful successor to Arnold as headmaster of [[Rugby School]] (one of his pupils was [[Lewis Carroll]]); and a serious illness in 1848, the first of many, led him to welcome the comparative leisure that followed upon his appointment to the deanery of [[Carlisle, Cumbria|Carlisle]] in 1849. His life there, however, was one of no little activity; he served on the University Commission, he restored his cathedral, and he did much excellent pastoral work. There, too, he suffered the great sorrow of his life.{{sfn|Collins|1911|p=363}} He had married [[Catharine Spooner]] at Rugby in 1843. She had opposed him becoming headmaster at Rugby because of differences in their belief, but she still married him. In fact Catharine was a great support to him and on her own account she helped the poor in the town and established a school for girls. In 1856, within five weeks, five of their nine children died due to virulent [[scarlet fever]].<ref>{{Cite ODNB|title=Tait, Catharine (1819–1878), philanthropist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-50739|access-date=2020-12-10|year=2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/50739|last1=Kollar|first1=Rene}}</ref> Two were spared and in time they were joined by another two siblings.

Not long afterwards, he was consecrated [[Bishop of London]] on 22 November 1856 at the [[Chapel Royal]], [[Whitehall]], by [[John Bird Sumner]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]],{{sfn|Stubbs|Holmes|1897|p=155}} as successor to [[Charles James Blomfield]]. His translation to Canterbury in 1868 (he had refused the archbishopric of York in 1862) constituted a recognition of his work but made no break in it. His last years were interrupted by illness and saddened by the death in 1878 of his only son, Craufurd (1848–1878), and of his wife, Catharine (1819–1878).{{sfn|Collins|1911|p=363}} Five of his eight daughters also died in childhood. Tragically all died of [[scarlet fever]] in 1856, within a few days of each other.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/archibald-campbell-tait|title=Archibald Campbell Tait}}</ref>